Over the horizona new danger

Judges 6 - 8

Marauders would suddenly come riding in on their camels to ravage and
destroy. At harvest time the Midianites would appear, and the
Amalekites, and the children of the East. They would set up
camp, plunder the produce of the land as far as Gaza, and leave
no sustenance in Israel, sheep, ox, or donkey.

It was then that the messenger of Yahweh came and sat under the oak at
Ophrah belonging to Joash the Abiezrite. Gideon, the son of
Joash, was threshing wheat in the winepress to hide it from the
Midianites. "Yahweh is with you, you mighty warrior,"
said the messenger. "But sir," protested Gideon, "if
Yahweh is with us, why has all this happened?" Then Yahweh
said: "Go in this strength of yours and deliver Israel!" "How
can I save Israel? my family is the weakest in Manasseh and I am its
least member!"

But that night Yahweh said to him, "Pull down the altar of Baal
that belongs to your father, cut down the totem pole. Build
there an altar to Yahweh your God. Slaughter your father's
sacrificial bull, and offer it there as a sacrifice to Yahweh."
(The Israelites had taken over and kept Canaanite altars in the belief that
'once holy always holy'. So this would seem like blasphemy
- striking at the roots of religion.) Gideon did as Yahweh had
instructed him, but he did it under cover of darkness for fear of the
guardian family and the townspeople, and he took ten servants with
him.

Early next morning, when the townspeople saw this sacrilege,
they demanded to know who was the culprit. And when they learned that
it was Gideon they ordered Joash to bring out his son for execution.
With unexpected insight Joash countered: "Will you presume to defend
Baal? If he is a god let Baal do that himself!" Hence a new
name for the unharmed Gideon: Jerubbaal.

Gideon gathered an army. "It is too large," the word came.
"A victorious Israel will take the credit, and claim that by
their own power they have delivered Yahweh. Let the apprehensive
return home!" Twenty-two thousand departed, ten thousand
remained. "Still too many! Watch how they drink from the
stream. Send away the ones who simply lap water like animals.
Keep the ones who show caution and cup their hands to drink." Just
three hundred.

In a strategy of nerves, Gideon ordered a sudden blowing of
trumpets and loud smashing of jars, at night, around the camp of
Midian. The Midianites screamed in panic and fled.

After that the people urged Gideon: "Rule over us, you and
your son and your grandson!" "No, I will not rule over you and
my son will not rule over you. Yahweh shall rule over you."

Israel was learning that salvation comes from within a people, even
as the God of Israel was becoming free from god.